Beer of Tomorrow

Tagged: samuel adams

Octoberfest beers are a very popular style with American craft breweries, and excellent examples can be found from coast to coast. We chose a handful of American versions and sat down with a tasting panel to suss out what elements of the malty lagers we liked best.Read more →

Few types of beer symbolize the American craft beer movement quite like the cult favorite seasonal: the pumpkin beers. A riff on early settler’s use of squash for fermentable sugars today’s pumpkin beers are often closer to pie-in-a-bottle, and they have a devout and fervent following of beer lovers who drive dozens of breweries to produce their own take on the gourd-laden brews. Every year the number of pumpkin beers to choose from grows, and we’ve tackled a dozen locally available examples for the first Beer of Tomorrow Pumpkin Beer Showdown!

The proper glassware for craft beer is a well-worn topic with the general consensus being tulips, snifters, and nonic pints being the three must-have glasses to cover most popular craft beer styles. When it comes to the most popular craft beer style in America, the American IPA, the usual recommendation is a nonic pint, but why shouldn’t this iconic and distinct style have its own signature glass-style? Something that would highlight all the qualities of the IPA that have made it so popular: the hoppy aromas, the lively carbonation, and the thick robust head? That’s just the question that Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione and Sierra Nevada’s Ken Grossman asked when they decided to begin developing the perfect glass for IPAs. Read more →

We were able to attend our first Dodger’s home game of 2012 on Friday night, and we made a detailed survey of the craft beer options at Dodger Stadium. Or, at least we tried. The pickings are depressingly slim this year. All of the Dodger Stadium-run concession outlets on the Field Level, where our seats were located, served MillerCoors and AB-INBEV beers exclusively with Miller, Coors, and Bud available in all their permutations. But where were the craft options? Read more →

Odds are your first beer was a lager, but your first craft-beer was an ale. You’ve no doubt heard the distinction between ales and lagers, but you might not know what determines this most basic division in beer styles. Almost every beer can be classified as either a lager or an ale simply depending on the type of yeast used to ferment the beer. Ales were the first types of beer to be brewed. Ale yeasts do their work on the top of the beer, and they prefer comparatively warm temperatures when fermenting. Lager yeasts ferment from the bottom of the beer, and they perform best at cooler temperatures where they produce a very “clean” tasting beer. Read on for the details behind this distinction. Read more →

As the weather warms up we leave the heavier barleywines, double IPAs, and imperial stouts in the fridge and reach for more refreshing beer instead. This summer a nascent style of craft beer is poised to take-off that will fit the bill: the White IPA. Many breweries are producing this new hybrid beer, and they can make a refreshing change-of-pace from a heavier IPA while retaining a satisfying depth-of-flavor and complexity. Let’s take a look at where this type of beer came from and what you should be on the look-out for. Read more →

Today marks the opening day of the 2012 baseball season, and few things pair better with beer than an afternoon at the ballpark watching America’s pastime. Beer and baseball are inexorably linked; their histories woven together and their futures equally tangled as craft beer struggles to replace American light lager at the taps of stadiums across the country. Read more →